WARD End Hollywood actor Charlie Hall has made a "comeback" more than 80 years after he first starred on the silver screen.

The former chippy was the star of a string of silent movies, including some alongside slapstick legends Laurel and Hardy.

Now his first movie The Soilers (1924) has been dusted down by Laughing Gravy - the Birmingham branch of the Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society - and featured in a special screening in the city recently.

Charlie was a carpenter turned actor - a model famously followed by superstar Harrison Ford in the 1970s.

As a teenager in search of a better life, Charlie first travelled with his sister to New York where he worked as a stage hand.

The comedian Bobby Dunn convinced Charlie to pursue an acting career.

He was was working as a chippy at the Hal Roach studios when Stan Laurel asked him to appear in The Soilers, starring Laurel, himself and James Finlayson.

Charlie went on to feature in 47 Laurel and Hardy films and he is honoured in Birmingham by a pub bearing his name in Barnabas Road, Erdington.

Appreciation society member John Ullah said: "He was stocky with dark black hair and at 5ft 3in Charlie often played a bystander, rival store owner or a husband jealous of Hardy's attentions to his wife."

He played Mr Hall in Them Thar Hills and Tit For Tat and starred with Laurel and Hardy in The Music Box, which won the Academy Award for the Best Short Subject ( Comedy) in 1932.

Charlie was born in Birmingham on August 19, 1899, and died on December 7, 1959, in North Hollywood, California, after appearing in more than 200 films, often uncredited.

His last appearance was as Gregor Flatorsharpsky in a 1956 movie called So You Want to Play the Piano.